I like #2 but I am also a Cthulhu fan so I am in your target demographic. I like the idea because as a GM who hasn't looked over the lightning gun and mi-go living armor in the Call of Cthulhu main book and said "these are really cool pieces of technology, it would be neat to play with them" but you can't give them out willy nilly in a Lovecraftian purist (or even shotguns and dynamite) Cthulhu game.
So you are shooting for a humor-pulp game that is basically Base Raiders and a sprinkling of Red Market's apocalypse-economics on top in the Cthulhu world. Lovecraft would spin in his grave. Sounds cool. Maybe even compare with the (excellent and too short) Day After Ragnarok.
Also I am thinking of rail guns with Shining Trapezohedron sliver ammunition.
Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.
The back story of game idea #2 would be roughly "Cthulhu woke up. Everyone who made their sanity check pulled together and kept civilization together, somehow. The survivors all have hypergraphia
though, so everyone keeps a journal.
I laughed. That is terrible, but it makes a kind of sense. I think its a LITTLE corny unless you justify it further, like alienists in the setting have noticed that hypergraphia is the last stage of insanity before heartattack/being eaten by a grue.
Now, mythos threats are a way to make lots of money and power. High level investigators ram a boat into Cthulhu every hour of every day to keep him in check.
Cool. I imagine Cthulhu Splat (patent pending) tours of cruse ships (piloted and voiced by the Payton drunk ferryman from the Dream Factory) taking war tourist gawkers by R'lyeh every hour on the hour. Don't forget your Deep One merchandise from the squamous bulging eyes fellow at the kiosk! Now instead of trying to fit into society, Deep One hybrids spend their human years as salesmen or celebrity entertainers before they take to the water. I am envisioning a Deep One Kim Kardashian but perhaps those butt pics are too terrifying. Also they are banned from Olympic swimming.
If Cthulhu is being kept in check then I imagine R'lyeh itself is an eternal battle ground with boatloads of adventurers arriving continuously like Einherjar. Perhaps with every "death" of Cthulhu parts or all of R'lyeh sinks and the adventurers have to scramble back to their boats with as much loot as they can carry. Every time Cthulhu reforms, R'lyeh rises again, fresh with Star Spawn and Deep Ones. It is touted that one Christmas the adventures and Star Spawn played a game of soccer on an unusual cease fire. Cthulhu's Cephalopods (registered by FIFA) were disqualified for non-Euclidean penalty kicks.
You go to the bar to find a job from old professors in the corner and then go to the general store and buy tommy guns and dynamite. Complete the job to get paid and maybe a chance to level up. Die and someone else will find your journal and pick up where you left off."
Classes:
Detective - rogue
Soldier - fighter
Reporter - bard
Dilettante - wizard
Priest - cleric
Tribal Fisherman - ranger
Hitman - Assassin
Tribal Fisherman better have Favored Enemy : Deep One
I'd argue that Reporter fits better as wizard since they will be writing down everything with hypergraphia.
I like the Dark Souls-style "save point" element of finding the character journals.
This is a good comparison and maybe a good advertising point? Like DarkSouls, my game is.... Buy my book!
